A Louisiana judge on Monday granted RJ Luis Jr., the 2025 Big East Player of the Year, a temporary injunction to play for LSU this season despite signing multiple NBA contracts.
After starring for St. John's in 2024-25 and securing second-team All-American honors, Luis went undrafted in the 2025 NBA draft. He signed a two-way contract with the Jazz, and then an Exhibit 10 contract with the Celtics' G League affiliate after he was traded from Utah to Boston and later waived. He saw preseason action but never appeared in a regular-season game.
Luis, who committed to LSU in May, hugged LSU coach Will Wade after the ruling by East Baton Rouge Parish District Court Judge Ronald R. Johnson.
The NCAA has been battling players in the 2022 class who have sought a fifth year of eligibility after they were excluded from the new age-based eligibility rules that will give every athlete five seasons to compete in the years ahead. Luis is not a fifth-year player. His case, however, could create a new pipeline of players who have signed professional contracts and want to make their way back to college basketball and the millions of dollars available to them if they do.
On Friday, the NCAA won its motion to reverse a federal preliminary injunction in Colorado that had created a blanket waiver for players in the 2022 high school class to play a fifth season. But it has lost the majority of cases at the state level in those eligibility cases.
Luis' situation could start a new wave of eligibility challenges.
"I hear that every time we do one of these eligibility cases: 'This is going to be the end of the NCAA.' That is not true," Elliot Sol Abrams, one of Luis' attorneys, told reporters after the judge's ruling Monday. "The NCAA chose to allow schools to start paying players directly. It made that choice. It could've fought that but it chose not to and so when you create the NCAA now as a professional league and then you start drawing these arbitrary distinctions and saying 'this is too much or that's too much,' all of these things, every time someone challenges an arbitrary decision of the NCAA, the NCAA cries wolf.
"This is just a judge forcing the NCAA to live up to the law as so many judges have had to do because the NCAA has decided to try to draw distinctions that don't stand up to reason."
Added Tony Clayton, a Baton Rouge-based attorney who also represented Luis: "This is precedent. It's monumental. This allows him to go practice, go play and we'll let the legal process work itself out."
The timeline for that process was not immediately clear.
"I don't know, but there's a lot of discovery that Elliot and I have to obtain," Clayton said. "We've got a lot of questions."
During the five-hour hearing, Luis' attorneys noted that the NCAA had granted exceptions allowing numerous players from overseas professional leagues to join college basketball programs, and argued that American players must be afforded the same opportunity.
They stressed that Luis not only had never played in an NBA game, but also had not played for the Celtics' G League affiliate because of an injury, and had far less of a professional basketball résumé than numerous college players who had been recruited from abroad.
NCAA attorney Taylor Askew argued that Luis' situation was not comparable to those who played for the developmental squads of pro organizations overseas because Luis chose to leave college for the NBA.
Askew noted that the only player in a similar situation to Luis was Alabama's Charles Bediako, who won a temporary restraining order allowing him to play five games for Alabama last season before an Alabama judge ultimately sided with NCAA assertions that he was ineligible.
"I understand Mr. Luis is disappointed that he was not drafted and did not play in the NBA as much as he would have liked," Askew said. "Actions have consequences. Decisions have outcomes and they're not always the right ones or the ones that you want."
As he made his ruling, Johnson said, "In the court's mind, [Luis] did not actually play professional basketball," and that whether Luis was properly advised of his options at the time he left college "lingers heavily before this court."
The players in the current pool of fifth-year prospects represent a one-time situation, as future college players will all get a fifth season. Luis' case could create a new influx of players who have signed professional contracts, even if they were in school years ago, to compete again at the collegiate level.
The NCAA will likely fight this case. SEC commissioner Greg Sankey, in a court filing, has spoken out against Luis and Kentucky commit Mark Mitchell, who had signed an Exhibit 10 contract before a local judge on Saturday cleared him to play.
Beyond the legal ramifications, the move is also a significant addition for Wade and LSU, which had just four players on its official roster earlier this month. Luis, a 6-foot-7 wing, averaged 18.2 points and 7.2 rebounds during the 2024-25 season. His arrival immediately raises the ceiling for LSU, which also has commitments from former UCLA teammates Donovan Dent and Skyy Clark.
Wade will have to rely on the courts to support his roster this season, as the bulk of his players will need court rulings to play -- court rulings that could be challenged, potentially jeopardizing the standing of those players in the months ahead.
Information from The Associated Press was included in this report.
